SPORTS 0
Titleholder to make a silent start
ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News | 9/11/2011 12:00:00 AM |
Defending champion Fenerbahçe will make its season debut against newcomer Orduspor in the last game of the Spor Toto Super League match day one.
Defending champion Fenerbahçe will make its season debut against newcomer Orduspor in the last game of the Spor Toto Super League match day one.
Fenerbahçe will play the game behind closed doors due to crowd trouble during a friendly against Shakhtar Donetsk on July 21.
During the fixture fans threw objects at the press stands and forced the journalists out before invading the pitch, forcing the referee to halt the game.
The crowd violence was Fenerbahçe fans’ way of protesting the media “lynch job” against their club, which remains at the center of match-fixing allegations.
Fenerbahçe Chairman Aziz Yıldırım and four club members are jailed pending trial on allegations of manipulating matches on the way to the team’s 18th league title last season. The investigation made Fenerbahçe’s preparations for the new season extremely difficult, but the club will attempt to show that it has left the chaos behind when it takes to the field on Monday.
The league kicked off with surprising results on Saturday as a pair of title hopefuls were upset by relatively unheralded opposition.
Last year’s runner-up, Trabzonspor, was held to a 1-1 draw by Manisaspor while Ziraat Turkish Cup winner Beşiktaş was beaten 2-1 by Eskişehirspor.
Trabzonspor failed to build on a first-half goal by Turkish international forward Burak Yılmaz and were made to pay when Canadian international Joshua Simpson stole in to rescue the home team a point with a late strike.
Eskişehirspor took the lead with Diego’s 25th minute strike, only for Beşiktaş to level the game in the final seconds of the first half through Hugo Almeida. But Batuhan Karadeniz, a former Beşiktaş striker, found the net late on to deal a first-week blow to the Istanbul side.
The league’s two other newcomers also made the best possible start against Ankara teams, with Mersin İdman Yurdu enjoying a 2-1 away win at Ankaragücü while Samsunspor downed Gençlerbirliği at home, 3-2.